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Monthly Archives: January 2007

Hey, all you jokers who were so convinced last year that critics were out of touch and just didn’t get lousy horror films!
Looks like the audience you were pandering to agrees with us.
The box-office blood flood started dwindling around mid-2006 – franchise of the moment “Saw” entry being the exception – and has now reached trickle proportions.
During the last several winters, some inept fright flick or two (or, as was the case 12 months ago, three or four) managed to trick enough thrill-seeking youths into making it open big and run its cumulative theatrical total up around $50 million or so. Usually, the few that bothered to inject some craftsmanship and (gasp) a thought or two into the proceedings, such as “Hostel” and “The Hills Have Eyes” remake, didn’t make quite as much money as the flat-out brain-eating fungus.
But so far this cold season, bad horror movies have been deader than a sorority full of zombies who indeed have had their brains eaten. “Blood and Chocolate’s” pathetic 15th place debut this weekend follows dismal openings for “The Hitcher,” “Primeval,” “Three” and “Black Christmas” since the solstice began.
I attribute this to a phenomenon that both cynical studio marketers and champions of bad taste pretending to be populist pundits do not want to believe exists: a natural maturing film sense among the young moviegoers who are horror’s target audience. My theory is that when kids first reach the age when they can see something R rated without buzz-killing parental accompaniment, they’ll go for the most transgressive-seeming stuff; i.e. slash/gore/torture/dead-sorority-girls-in-underwear. But after their initial thrist for the forbidden is slaked, they’ll develop something like (eek) taste, and tire of murky cinematography and idiotic plots.
In the horror films they’ve been gorging on, anyway. Whether they’ll ever develop real discernment for other kinds of cinema remains a mystery of both biology and cultural entropy that the greatest minds in the world would be driven mad trying to figure out.
Anyway, this seems to be a generational event, which explains why the horror genre rises and crashes every five years or so as a new set of middle schoolers comes into its fake i.d. own.
Of course, while all signs point to the latest batch outgrowing the genre now, I may be wrong. “The Messengers,” which doesn’t have much competition beside a football game that’s usually as boring as the SAG Awards, could be a huge hit when it opens next weekend. That would be perfectly fine with me, as it’s the first American movie directed by Danny and Oxide Pang, who’ve made some of the best Asian fright films of the last several years. The studio won’t be screening for critics pre-opening day, which is rarely an encouraging sign, but those guys have proven repeatedly that they wouldn’t know a good ghost story from a bad werewolf romance if it bit them.
Until then, congratulations to today’s students for not taking any old bloody junk anymore. Advanced courses in avoiding witless parodies and formulaic step-dance romances will be offered next semester.

After appearing on various street corners around town with a live bovine to try to promote/goose-the-non-existent-Oscar-chances of his widely unseen movie “Inland Empire,” David Lynch has taken surreal self-promotion to a new level with a free show at the Kodak Theatre Sunday at 7, featuring a live performance by Donovan.
That’s right, English ’60s troubador Donovan. “Mellow Yellow.” “Sunshine Superman.” The guy Dylan mercilessly skewered in “Dont Look Back.” It’s free, though.
Between sets of “Jennifer Juniper” and “Epistle to Dippy,” Lynch will discuss his latest impenetrable cinematic thingamajig and, perhaps more enlightenly, his concise, insightful new book “Catching the Big Fish.”
It’s sort of a career bio mixed with what could be written off as New Age twaddle. But Lynch’s lucid descriptions of how his longtime practice of Transcendental Meditation freshens his artistic soul sound pretty convincing (at least to someone who practices different kinds of meditation and creativity; your experience may vary).
And yes, I attributed lucidity to David Lynch in the previous paragraph. The book is all to-the-point, one- and two-page chapters, most of which are clearer about life priorities, creative nuts and bolts and where such masterpieces as “Mulholland Dr.” and “Blue Velvet” and a good 10 minutes of the three-hour “Inland Empire” come from than anything in those movies ever were. Or that the sphynxlike Lynch has been willing to say about them before (he writes good explanations of why he acts like that, too). It’s a rare psycho-autobio that’s wry and inspirational for both those who want some practical spiritual nourishment in their lives and those hoping to maintain their integrity in the movie business. Or anyone who’d like to do both.
It even sort of helps one understand the cow weirdness, if not the Donovan thing.
And if you want to hear Lynch without the side order of “Hurdy Gurdy Man,” he’ll be doing a solo book signing at the Westwood Borders, 1360 Westwood Blvd., Tuesday the 23rd at 7 p.m.
Yes, that’s the date the Oscar nominations will be announced at, like, 5 in the morning. But I expect Lynch will be lucid; he’s not likely to be awakened by any predawn calls.

The shortened Oscar season has neutered the influence? of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association to the point of irrelevancy.

Still … the search for MEANING continues.

Category by category …

BEST PICTURE

Long the presumed frontrunner, Dreamgirls? has been taking its hits lately. Thats the way it works when youre in the lead unless youre Helen Mirren. Or Jennifer Hudson. Then everyone else is just happy to be nominated.?

Tonights win solidifies Dreamgirls ?place at the table. Certainly, if Little Miss Sunshine? had taken the comedy/musical category, you would have been reading scores of little-engine-that-could? stories and more about the perceived flaws of Bill Condons musical. (As if Sunshine,? itself an arty spin on National Lampoons Vacation,? is a work of art.)

As it stands and has stood since it became apparent that Academy members arent bothering to watch Clint Eastwoods Letters From Iwo Jima? its a wide-open race between Dreamgirls,? Sunshine,? The Departed,? The Queen? and the HFPAs drama winner Babel.? (I dont think much of Babel? its chances or its storytelling, for that matter.)

BEST ACTOR

Forrest Whitaker remains the front-runner. Sacha Baron Cohen maybe gets a nomination. (He should. His is the most artistically daring work in the category.) But dont discount Will Smith, whose Pursuit of Happyness? is the most widely-seen and politically inoffensive (provided youre not offended by the films bland inoffensiveness) of the presumed nominees.

BEST ACTRESS

Helen Mirren.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Eddie Murphys win for his energetic Jackie Wilson / James Brown soul man in Dreamgirls? confirms him as the man to beat. And if an Oscar is what it takes to remind Murphy that he can entertain without debasing his considerable talent, then, by all means, give the man the statue.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Jennifer Hudson.

BEST DIRECTOR

God, its going to feel like a punch in the gut if Martin Scorsese loses again. Can he? Sure. But with Eastwood out of the picture, whos going to beat him? Stephen Frears? Bill Condon? Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, the least of The Three Amigos?? The Sunshine? newcomers?

No, this is shaping up to be Martys year at least, until they read first-timer Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris names for Little Miss Sunshine? and the world spins off its axis, hurls itself toward the sun and God repays the Academy for all those times Scorsese got ripped off.

Ive been encouraged? to file some impressions from last nights Los Angeles Film Critics soire, a simple enough task, one would think, until you factor in the amount of alcohol consumed by many at my table, which was comprised of the fun-loving folks behind the doomsday doc An Inconvenient Truth.? (Al Gore was a no-show. Apparently hes somewhere in Japan, promoting the movie or holed up at the Park Hyatt Tokyo with Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson.)

The imbibing had less to do with drowning awareness of those melting ice caps as it did with the length of awards segment of the evening. As the speeches went on and on (and, in some cases, on), it became apparent that Truth? director Davis Guggenheim and his lovely wife Elisabeth Shue would not have to worry about potty training their infant daughter. Shed be old enough to go to the bathroom by herself by the time the ceremony ground to a close.

Still, the evening had its moments. Helen Mirren thanking her husband for still wanting to have sex with her while playing Queen Elizabeth II was a good line, topped only by her perfectly timed add that maybe the whole thing fulfilled some kind of sordid little fantasy on his part.

The wife found her fave Sacha Baron Cohen and made his fianc, Isla Fisher, laugh with a joke that Im forbidden to repeat here. I enjoyed a bit of cocktail hour time with Clint Eastwood.
(Did I mention that the event featured alcohol?) And, as previously mentioned, the Truth?-tellers were a good bunch, even as their numbers thinned out due to illness (producer Lawrence Bender), attention-deficit disorder (Paramount Vantage president John Lesher) or just plain boredom (producer Scott Z. Burns).

They missed the dry brilliance of Mirren, a very funny Cohen and Reese Witherspoon popping in to present the career achievement award to Robert Mulligan with a speech that somehow managed to call attention to the vast sums of money that Witherspoon makes as an A-lister and the fact that she has a very good lawyer.

Witherspoon then left via the kitchen, either to avoid the paparazzi or get her hands on a second helping of polenta. Check back for updates.

When they vote for awards, most Hollywood craft guild members seem to go for what they enjoy, with little regard as to whether it’s a sterling example of artistically doing what they do for their livings. In that way, they’re just like the Academy Awards and People’s Choice balloters.
One glowing exception to that rule this year is the American Society of Cinematographers, whose five nominees for best director of photography appear, to me, to be unusually perceptive about what makes for superb moving pictures – as well as represent a nice, rigorous refusal to listen to award campaign strategists or care what less-discerning eyes think is prestigious, acceptably enjoyable or likely to be some popularity contest winner.
Of course, another way of looking at it is, the DPs don’t care what else goes wrong with a movie as long as the lighting’s exquisite and the camera moves are awesome. But even that attitude is worth applauding now and then; the fundamental at of movies is conveying stories through pictures, after all, and if you love the form, at least occasionally you’ve just got to look at it that way.
So here’s to nominees Emmanuel Lubezki, whose extended “Children of Men” takes have been duly noted for their techincal audacity, but also deserve praise for the way they involve a viewer so intimately in complex action; “The Illusionist’s” Dick Pope, who gave both a historically persuasive and otherworldly feel to fin de siecle Austria; Robert Richardson – deservedly admired for the flashy work he’s done for Oliver Stone, Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino – who proved himself also a master of classic compositions and restrained yet emotionally precise framing with “The Good Shepherd”; Dean Semler, whose hi def digital lensing of “Apocalypto” brought new kinds of visceral adrenalin, strangeness and terrible beauty to the screen; and past master Vilmos Zsigmond, whose elegant shadows and camera choreography salvaged all there ways to save – and it turned out to be substantial – of the madly mucked-up “Black Dahlia.”
Not all of these were the artiest films of 2006. But their cinematographers certainly put great art into them.

As readers of this blog know, I’m no huge fan of Clint Eastwood’s “Letters from Iwo Jima.”
But part of why it didn’t grab me was because Eastwood clearly directed the film entirely on his own terms, infusing every frame of a completely foreign project (and in a language he doesn’t speak, yet) with his distinctive aesthetic, personality, philosophy and moral instinct. Some of his ideas simply didn’t sync up with mine regarding what a war movie should be; but I never questioned that he made the movie with all the formidable ability at his command, and created something unique and powerful.
So, while I was neither surprised nor disappointed to see Eastwood absent from today’s list of Directors Guild of America Award nominees, I gotta say: You clowns thought “Little Miss Sunshine” was directed better?
What part? The fifth or sixth time they had to push start the van?
And you evidently thought “LMS” was better directed than “Children of Men,” “United 93,” “Casino Royale,” “Little Children” and “Pan’s Labyrinth,” which are just some of the films I’d say were more deserving of snubbing Eastwood over.
Guess that explains why so many more American movies turn out like “Click” than something that really shows a filmmaker’s talent and soul, rather than just his or her amusement skills.

Sure sounds exciting and all, James Cameron finally directing another movie.
And “Avatar” is supposed to be a sci fi combat thing at that, like “Aliens” and “Terminator 1 & 2,” for my money the best high tech action movies ever made.
Speaking of high tech, big talker Cameron promises all kinds of 3-D and digital animation breakthroughs in the new film.
And I’ve actually seen his little-known lead actor, Sam Worthington, in the terrific Australian coming-of-age drama “Somersault.” He’s good.
But whoa . . . There’s an interspecies romance with some alien chick in the midst of all this? If her people – or whatever they are – don’t approve, we may be looking at an outer space “Titanic” here.
Which may justify the film’s already gruesome (and sure to grow) $200 million production budget. But if Cameron lets this one get as sappy as his last movie, some kind of artistic credibility will surely be lost.
It doesn’t matter how many girls he made squeal, “Titanic” dealt in cliches and simplistic manipulation. Cameron’s real creative genius comes out in his future myths, which may seem simple too – they’re essentially chase-and-fight stories – but tend to have profund resonances like are found in only the most literate sci fi. And when he matches storytelling integrity to that singular visual dynamism of his, Cameron comes close to making the ultimate movie.
As opposed to the ultimate crowd-pleaser, which by its very definition would be some kind of compromised vision.
You’ve waited this long to get back in the saddle, Jim. Don’t let anyone dissuade you (including yourself) from riding hard.

Some viewers have questioned “Children of Men’s” underlying premise. That’s reasonable; the film asks us to accept a world, twenty-odd years in the future, in which no human babies have been born for two decades, and doesn’t bother to give a scientific explanation why to its characters or its audience.
The fact that other mammals have clearly been reproducing just fine over the period in question really bugs some viewers, while some fans are already devoting hours of geeky fun to figuring out a good reason for the discrepency. Both responses are as natural as can be, and surely result from a risk director Alfonso Cuaron and the film’s many writers knew they were taking.
But trying to rationalize the barren plague at the aching core of “Children of Men” perhaps blinds the film’s detractors and lovers alike to a potent, poetic metaphor. Cuaron and his crew have, as many have noted, created a future world that really looks very much like today’s. Fear of foreigners, idealism degenerated into terrorism, all manner of social, moral and spiritual erosion, rising authoritarianism, near-perpetual warfare – these diseases are loose upon the Earth now, and most seem to be gaining strength.
If things continue along such lines, the film says without ever actually saying it, mankind has no future. So, the babies stopped coming.
It’s not a scientific explanation, I know, but “Children of Men” depicts a nightmare – a visceral one that often feels as real as the last firefight in Baghdad, but a fantasy nonetheless. And like most dreams, and most great movies, it is fraught with symbolism.
So get hung up on the how of the missing children if you must. But the question of why that this thoughtful, searching and heartrending film poses is the truly, troublingly profound one.

News outlets love reductively calling them the Three Amigos. But at this point, I think, Guillermo Del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu can legitimately be labeled the Three Mexican Masters.
Each of the acknowledged buddies directed their best film to date in 2006: “Pan’s Labyrinth” (Del Toro), “Children of Men” (Cuaron) and “Babel” (Gonzalez Inarritu). “Pan’s” just nabbed the most prestigious critics prize of them all, the National Society of Film Critics’ best picture citation. The audaciously filmed dystopian thriller “Children of Men” is the season’s movie-of-choice for a wider range of hip critics and filmgoers. And “Babel” is the somewhat surprising, top nomination-getter among the more conventional awards-giving groups, such as the Golden Globes people and Screen Actors Guild, that have reported so far.
Hmm. I like to think of myself as a perceptive critic. And against all outside empirical evidence to the contrary, I actually believe I have my cool qualities. Plus, I usually revel in deriding of the lamer choices SAG and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association inevitably make (this year, nominations for “Bobby” are the big joke – now watch the academy follow suit and give that pointless liberal soft porn best picture).
But if my list of the year’s best films is an indicator, it looks like I’m with the lame-os when it comes to my Mexicans’ movies taste. I ranked “Babel” second best film of the year, “Children of Men” number four and “Pan’s Labyrinth” didn’t make the top 10 cut (just barely, I can honestly report).
But I don’t think that means that my tastes are growing as sclerotic as the rest of me is. The quality difference I’m able to perceive between these three exquisite films is non-existent. If anything, it was my own personal preference for films that lean toward realism that made the difference, and only in my head. “Babel” may have been a bit contrived, but it was all feasible and character-based; “Children” was a very realistic near-future projection that referenced much of what’s going on in society now; and “Pan’s” split the difference between beautifully realized fantasy and true political horror.
All told, the accomplishments of the Three Mexican Masters last year just point out the fundamental idiocy of ranking works of art. I’m just thankful that three such great films are out there to see, and anyone who loves what movies can do should be, too.